Secretary listens to state, local officials, but is quick to stress law's basic goals.

In the 15th stop on her intermittent
national tour to promote
the No Child Left Behind Act,
Secretary of Education Margaret
Spellings found both defenders
and critics of the law here in
West Virginia this month. And
they turned out to be the same
people.

The 6-year-old federal
law has “been a
wake-up call for all
of us,” Ron Duerring,
the superintendent
of the 28,000-student
Kanawha County school system,
which serves Charleston and the
surrounding area, told Secretary
Spellings during a one-hour
roundtable discussion in the state
Capitol on March 7.

But, Mr. Duerring and other
participants added, schools’
NCLB-spurred emphasis on getting
students to reach proficiency
in reading and mathematics has
often come at the expense of
other subjects and learning all
subjects in depth.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to
narrow what we’re teaching, and
there’s a tendency for us to not
pay attention to other subjects,”
said state Superintendent of
Schools Steve Paine. States
should be encouraged, he added,
to set standards that engage students
in learning higher-order
thinking skills.

“While they learn to read,” Ms.
Spellings interjected.

In January, Secretary Spellings
said she had decided to visit
states this year to listen to educators’
and policymakers’ concerns
about the NCLB law, which
has generated more controversy
and complaints than other recent
versions of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act.

Making It Better

Her comment in response to
Mr. Paine, though, suggests that
she won’t budge from her belief
that the federal law should hold
schools accountable for ensuring
all students are proficient in
reading and math. That’s a level
of achievement she compared to
grade-level expectations.

So far, Ms. Spellings has visited
16 states since January to discuss
the future of the law, which is one
of the Bush administration’s
biggest domestic accomplishments
and is awaiting renewal by Congress.
On March 10, three days
after her trip here, she and her team traveled to Syracuse, N.Y.

The trips follow a similar pattern.
In West Virginia, the secretary
arrived at St. Albans High
School, a public school in nearby
St. Albans at 11 a.m. to visit a
classroom and speak at an all-school
assembly.

At the assembly, Ms. Spellings
spoke for six minutes, congratulating
the students for helping
the school reach adequate yearly
progress, the key benchmark
under the NCLB law’s accountability
system.

She added that they should
pursue a college education, regardless
of the price, because the
federal government and colleges
offer financial assistance.

“Do not let affordability be a barrier to postsecondary education,”
she told the 1,000 students
at the school, which is part of the
Kanawha County system.

Then, Ms. Spellings was on her
way to the Capitol here in
Charleston, 12 miles away.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore
Capito, R-W.Va., acted as the secretary’s
hostess at both sites.

At least one prominent Democrat
also took part in the day’s
events. Gayle Manchin, the wife
of Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin
III and a member of the state
board of education, attended the
school assembly. At the Capitol,
Ms. Manchin sat next to Ms.
Spellings during the discussion.

At the roundtable discussion,
which included a box lunch for
all participants, the secretary
promised to do more listening
than talking.

In other states on her current
tour, Secretary Spellings has
been the main attraction as a
witness before a legislative committee
or as the
featured speaker
to a community
group.

One thing the
West Virginia visit
had in common with the other
trips was that it was brief. By 2
p.m., the secretary and her entourage
had left the Capitol for
the Charleston airport to catch
their flight back to Washington.

While the events suggest that
the secretary is serious about
hearing ideas on how to improve
the law, her recent travels
haven’t changed the tenor of the
debate over it, said one critic of
No Child Left Behind.

“It’s a fly-by. It’s going through
the motions,” said Robert Schaeffer,
the public education director
of the National Center for Fair
& Open Testing, or FairTest. The
Cambridge, Mass., watchdog
group has issued press releases
in advance of Ms. Spellings’ trips
to several states. The releases
highlight data that FairTest says
demonstrate that the law isn’t
working.

“It can’t begin to parry the ongoing
and rising drumbeat from
educators about NCLB,” Mr. Schaeffer
said. “One day of positive
[media] coverage—even if it were
all positive—can’t possibly compensate
for that.”

A ‘Game Changer’

Secretary Spellings’ travels
also have failed—so far—in advancing
her goal of spurring
Congress to act on the law’s
reauthorization, which was due
last year. Lawmakers have not
made significant progress on an
NCLB bill. Last week, Rep. George
Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of
the House Education and Labor
Committee, said that he doubted
Congress would complete the
task this year. ("Rep. Miller Joins Pessimists Club on NCLB Renewal," March 19, 2008.)

After the meeting in the West
Virginia Capitol, the secretary
said her recent trips have shown
her that she and many policymakers
across the country agree
on the issues that need to be addressed
with the law, either
through congressional action or
rule-making by the federal Department
of Education.

“It was affirming in the sense
that there are a few core issues
and a consensus around where
we need to go next,” Ms.
Spellings said in a press conference
that concluded her stop in
Charleston. “There’s a real recognition
that No Child Left Behind
has been an important game
changer in education … and
we’re focusing more intently on
kids who have been left behind.”

During the one-hour discussion
with educators, Ms. Spellings reminded
participants that she has
taken several actions to improve
implementation of the law. To address
concerns that schools are
not getting enough credit for significant
improvement in individual
students’ achievement, the
secretary has approved nine
states’ applications to consider
such growth in accountability decisions.
Another 10 states have
applied for the chance to use such
“growth models” to determine
schools’ and districts’ adequate
yearly progress—a key measure
of success under NCLB—in the
2007-08 school year, she said.

She also has allowed states to
adopt alternative standards and
assessments for up to 3
percent of their special
education students.

But the regulatory
moves haven’t done
enough to address all the
complaints.

Although most participants
in the West Virginia
roundtable supported
the law’s goal of
ensuring that students
achieve proficiency, they said
that focus has meant schools
have dropped enriching activities
for students who have met the
achievement goals.

Rep. Capito said schools are
working hard on reading and
math instruction at the expense
of other subjects.

“Short shrift might be a harsh
way of putting it,” she said while
introducing Ms. Spellings to the
roundtable participants, who included
state school board members,
the presidents of both of the
state’s major teachers’ unions,
and business leaders.

Judy Belcher, a parent of a St.
Albans High student, said that
her children and community
members tell her that schools
aren’t giving up creative activities
that inspire them to learn.
“The low morale: That’s what I
kept hearing about from teachers
and kids,” she said.

Mr. Duerring, the Kanawha
County superintendent, said he
is hearing a similar message in
annual focus groups his district
conducts with high school students.

“There is no time in the schedule
… to have an open discussion
about things,” he told Secretary
Spellings. “It’s all about time on
task, … making sure we cover
the curriculum.”

While the secretary acknowledged
those concerns, she
brought the conversation back to
her bottom line: The law should
live up to its name and leave no
child behind.

The federal government won’t
go back to policies “where we put
the money out and hoped for the
best for 40 years,” she said during
the roundtable. “Lots and lots
of kids were being moved
through the system with little to
show for it.”

“When do you want your child
on grade level?” Ms. Spellings
said, repeating a rhetorical question
she often raises in Washington.
“You want them on grade
level today. This is something we
have to do and we can do.”

Vol. 27, Issue 28, Pages 19, 21

Published in Print: March 19, 2008, as Spellings, on Tour, Aims to Promote NCLB

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.